Orienteering at An Enchanted Place, Ashdown Forest

Published on 20/03/19

Fans of A A Milne’s Winnie the Pooh stories will be familiar with the Hundred Acre Wood, the Poohsticks Bridge and Galleons Lap, but not everyone realises that they are real places in the Ashdown Forest where the real Christopher Robin played as a child. Taking its name from the last chapter of The House at Pooh Corner, this area of the forest is known an ‘An Enchanted Place’, and this was the venue for the south east regional heat of the Compass Sport Trophy on Sunday 17 March in which four members of the Claremont Fan Court School orienteering squad competed.

Ellis A successfully ran his first solo Orange course in a major event, and though he found navigation confusing in apparently featureless parts of the forest, completed the course in 99 minutes, while Robert G, having accidentally picked up the incorrect map at the beginning of the race was placed 13th out of the 22 Superveterans (aged 70+). On the Junior Men’s Green course Nathan J ran a steady race to finish 12th in 51:52 and Jack P did extremely well to finish 8th in 41:50.

Sadly, despite making generally good use of their compasses, none of the boys managed to find the North Pole, and though there were rumours of a large honey jar at the bottom of one of the numerous forest pits, no one caught even a fleeting glimpse of a heffalump.